An AI notetaker that joins your Zoom, Meet, and Teams calls, then hands you live transcripts, summaries, and action items.
Reviewed by Tom · Founder & lead reviewerOtter.ai records and transcribes meetings, either through its OtterPilot assistant that joins Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams calls from your calendar, or through live recording on desktop and mobile. During the call you get a real-time transcript with speaker labels; afterward Otter generates a summary, pulls out action items, and captures shared slides alongside the text. An AI chat feature lets you ask questions about what was said across your meetings. Transcripts are searchable and shareable, with highlights and comments for team workflows. The pitch is simple: stop taking notes and stay present in the conversation. For English-language meetings on mainstream platforms, it delivers on that pitch most of the time, with the usual AI-transcription caveats around messy audio.
Otter's free plan gives you a monthly allowance of transcription minutes with per-conversation caps - enough to evaluate it, not enough to run a real calendar on. The Pro plan lands around $8.33 per month on annual billing and lifts the limits substantially, while Business adds admin controls and more minutes. Against the category, this is aggressive pricing: you are paying less than most competitors for the core notetaker experience. The value equation weakens if you need advanced integrations, more languages, or unlimited-feeling usage, where rivals earn their higher prices. Watch the annual-versus-monthly gap too - the monthly rate is meaningfully higher than the advertised annual figure, a common but annoying pattern. For most solo professionals, Pro is one of the better cost-per-hour-saved deals in AI software.
If your week is a wall of Zoom and Meet calls and you are still typing notes, Otter Pro pays for itself in the first week - the summaries and action items alone justify it. Students, journalists, and researchers also get strong value from the recording and search features. Hold off if your meetings are multilingual or full of specialized jargon, because cleanup time eats the savings, or if you need meeting data flowing automatically into a CRM, where Fireflies.ai is the stronger pick. Privacy-conscious teams should note that a bot visibly joins your calls and other participants will see it, which some clients dislike. Start free, watch how accurate it is on your actual meetings for two weeks, then decide.
Individuals and small teams who live in back-to-back calls and want notes and action items handled automatically.
Start today and see how it fits your workflow. Register through the link below — it costs you nothing extra and helps fund our independent testing.
Community discussion
Used Otter.ai? Share your real experience - help others decide, and read what other users think.